BTRT Patterns (on Etsy)

Our children are being targeted. They are treated, by the media and marketers, as consumers-in-training.

I have reflected a little on this in my series about advertising to kids (Part One/ Part Two).

And I wanted to share some resources for interested parents.

From Commercial Alert : Protecting Communities Against Consumerism comes a helpful article:The Parents' Bill of Rights, Helping Mom and Dad Fight Commericialism which refers to a Parents' Bill of Rights. The PBOR contains a number of acts geared towards protecting our children (ie commercial free television, no product placement, commercial free schools) and is in a printable format, suitable for sending to your elected reps (Americans). The PBOR highlights some critical components, particularly the rights of parents to choose the influences on their children's lives! Is it perfect? No, but it is a step in the right direction.

The folks at theCampaign for a Commercial Free Childhood has many resources available, and a list of manymore like minded community organizations that we, as parents, can access for education and resources.

My personal favourite comes from the work of Raffi Cavoukian. Yes, that Raffi~ the children's entertainer. Raffi is passionate about 'Honouring the Child' and has established a strong Canadian presence. You will find his vision well articulated atraffinews.com. You can download a free PDF of Raffi's anthology of Child Honouring, too!

In the United Church of Canada, these issues have been tackled in a series of workshops and community resources around the idea of 'empire' andChallenging Empirewith resources for adults, children and worship.

This is just a starter, a primer, perhaps! Do you have links or resources we can add?